Skip to main content

Thoughts on Marriage

Dear Friends,

Today I saw a quote about marriage that resonated with me after 43 years of marriage, and 40 years of counseling married couples both inside and outside the church. If you are married, it will help. If you aren't married but are thinking of getting married, it will help. If you've been married only a short time, it may help put things into perspective, and if you've been married a long time it might explain some of the things you’ve wrestled with, leading you to nod in agreement. In any case, reading the first quote, and the others I added to go with it, cannot hurt! Enjoy!  



“Marriage is the greatest instrument of sanctification. How would you ever learn unconditional love if you were married to someone who met all the conditions? How would you ever learn mercy, patience, long-suffering, heart-felt compassion if you were married to someone who never failed you? Who is never difficult with you? Who has never sinned against you? Who is never slow to acknowledge their sin or ask for forgiveness? How would you ever learn grace—to pour out your favor on someone who did not deserve it—if you were married to someone who was always deserving of all good things? The main purpose of marriage is that through your marriage, you both become conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.”
Paul Washer

“The first bitter lessons of marriage consist in learning to love the person we had actually married, instead of the image we wanted to have married… A long-term marriage has to move beyond chemistry to compatibility, to friendship, to companionship. It is certainly not that passion disappears, but that it is conjoined with other ways of love.” 
Madeline L’Engle



“Happy marriage does not depend on one fortunate choice of perfectly matched partners. It is a lifetime process depending on many choices and many adjustments arrived at by two free individuals who deliberately choose the same harness and who continuously sacrifice personal freedom and self-interest for a mutually agreeable way of life.”
 Henry Brand

“Success in marriage is more than finding the right person; it is a matter of being the right person.” 
B.R. Brickner

“More marriages might survive if the partners realized that sometimes the better comes after the worse.” 
Dan Larson

 

“A husband is one who stands beside you in times of trouble you wouldn’t have had if you hadn’t married him.”
Anonymous

“A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers.”
Ruth Graham Bell

“When you say “I do” it is helpful to remember the person you are pledging yourself to that day will not be the same person 10, 20, 30 years down the road—and neither will you. That’s why we must pledge ourselves to love and cherish their inner person, not their body, money, looks, or other transient things.” J.F.E.  



Yours in the Hope of the Gospel, Pastor Jeff

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thoughts From Horatius Bonar

Dear Friends, If you are like me, you may have had a bad experience in the past with churches that stressed “holiness.” Not because churches shouldn’t, but because the focus was placed on outward conformity to externalisms, or a prescribed set of moralism’s that sucked the atmosphere of grace out of the church. In fact, the more effort-based versions of “holiness” are stressed, the more grace disappears – and the vacuum left in its wake is filled with even more rigid standards of morality and law-based duties – driving all who truly struggle with sin into hiding or pretending. And of all the books I have ever read on holiness (or godliness) none (in my opinion) hold a candle to “God’s Way of Holiness” by the Scottish minister Horatius Bonar (1808-1889). A book I have given to numerous people to read. If you were one who was turned off, or wounded, by a form of holiness based on what Bonar calls, “constrained externalism” or self-effort, I offer you this selection as a taste of w...
Post a Comment
Read more

More Christian Quotes

Dear Friends, Everyone (I assume) has a “favorite” Christian quote. Over the years I have collected and memorized many! So, today, I simply typed in my search engine “Favorite Christian Quotes” to see which one’s other people liked best and share them with you – assuming, of course, that if they spoke to others they might also speak to you. If you have one that you found extremely helpful, and is not included here, I would like to know what it is, and ask that you might take a moment at the end to pass it along to me. Thanks! Enjoy. “Please do not feel you have the right to judge me simply because I sin differently than you.” Anonymous “The two most important days of your life are the day you were born and the day you discover why.” Mark Twain "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “The proper understanding of everything in life begins with...
Post a Comment
Read more

Thoughts from John Powell

Dear Friends, Sometimes you come across a story that sticks with you. This particular true story was one I read in 1897 and still remember today. Therefore, I thought I would share it with you. It comes from a book entitled “He Touched Me” by John Powell. Powell was a professor and counsellor at Loyola University in Chicago, with degrees in Psychology, the Classics, and Theology, and at the time when the events of this story transpired he was going through some inner struggles himself – events he chronicles in another book, “Why Am I Afraid To Tell You Who I Am?” At that time a lady came to him for counselling – who in the end changed his outlook on counselling. This is her story, and one that changed him. Enjoy. “A neurotic friend was weaving in and out of my life a few years ago. Each time we met there was the same neurotic whine, the same indecision, the same egocentric focus that is born out of deeply embedded pain from past trauma. It became clear that after many counsellin...
Post a Comment
Read more